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“We were asked to investigate because we are an outside agency,” said Bivens. “This is to avoid any controversy that anything is being covered up,” he said.

Bivens said he had no indication that the death was anything more than a suicide.

The suicide of a person connected by friendship to a former chief of the village department comes just two weeks after another Caseyville Police officer, Sgt. Scott Miller, committed suicide with a firearm.